Mbeya coffee

This is probably old news for many, but in case it is new to some....Pleased to see Level Ground Trading has been offering Cafe' Mbeya as Direct Fair Trade Organic Tanzanian coffee-whole dark bean from the village of Ilege in Mbeya.

First saw it in a store in Naples Florida USA in 2003, then in Vancouver BC Canada supplied by COSCO and Thrifty's and even once by Starbucks. Super.

Reminds me of the coffee farm owned by the Wildboz just outside of Mbeya. Do not know where they went after 1972.

Mbeya coffee seems to be widely available on Vancouver Island. In fact our local church serves only Mbeya coffee...I remember being a young child in Tanganyika - Tanzania and the aroma of coffee grown and roasted in East Africa...while I love a good cup of coffee today, I've never really tasted coffee today like I remember it tasting back then. Is it the roasting, the water or a combination of these?

I lived on a farm near the village of Igawa, about 80 miles from mbeya on the iringa road. We left tanzania in august, 962, but my dad, at the request of the owners, (David Ricardo and Colonel Towne), had planted coffee. We were on the banks of the fastflowing Mbarali river, (about 5 miles off the main road.eastwards), and the coffee seedlings dad planted were just coming to fruition. He had sold about 10 sacks in mbeya. The first year's seedlings had been demolished by a herd of elephants coming down to drink, and being attracted by all the wind-breaks surrounding the field. Bananas and Paw-Paws!

Dear Rory Johnston, How lovely to see your name here! This is Morag Cormack. I did not know of your family's connection to the Riccardo's of Matanana Ranch, where we lived for about a year and a half - not sure of how long we stayed there. Mr. Riccardo was an eccentric, wasn't he? I felt sorry for his wife, Lady Barbara, during Ramadan, as he had turned Muslim and so the house was full of his local friends at night until the early hours and then she also had to fast during the day, so we heard, although she was not a Muslim. What do you remember of them? We lived in a house a couple of miles away from the Riccardo's, which had been built for Robin Maughan, the nephew of Somerset Maughan, so Robin would have quiet to develop his own writing skills. The house was completely isolated in the middle of a marsh, that one very dry year caught fire during school holidays. The house roof was smouldering, and we all lined up with buckets being filled from a tap in the outside kitchen to hand them to my father on the roof. What excitement! Guess my parents were not as gleeful as we children... A bunch of feral cats bolted out of the roof. Dad had been trying to kill them off, as one lot had had rabies and that was another scare for him and Mum, although, once again, us kids considered it an adventure. How are you doing, Rory? Birmingham is grey and miserable today. How is Kirsty? We have lost touch with each other. I enjoyed meeting her when I was in SA in 2006 to say goodbye to Gordon. Have you read Tony Edwards' book, The Slope of Kongwa Hill? It is beautifully written and very evocative of the time. It is really his memoirs, not a novel as the blurb calls it. I am in it, p. 52, mis-spelling of our name which did not have 'Mc' before it. Take care, hope you receive this and will answer.